24 Doctors! Oh My! (Spoilers)

[Tom]

So we have had 12 Doctors (including Hurt's War Doctor). Then the Time Lords gave the Doctor an new 13 regeneration cycle. He used one of the 13 to regenerate to Capaldi's Doctor. So now the Doctor can have 12 more bodies after Capaldi so that gives us 24 Doctors in total.

How many Doctors do you think we will see before the show finally ends? Will the Doctor be more daring knowing he has lives to spare? How else do you think it will effect him?

 

[Kaijima]

You know I hope the show does play off the ramifications of the Doctor getting a new lease on life(s). For example the Capaldi Doctor simultaneously acting young and old (even younger by recent Doctor standards.)

And it might make sense for the Doctor, flush with glee about being renewed, to become reckless and maybe even use up a regeneration or two in a stunt that previously would have been too dangerous.

 

[Green Lantern]

I think now show runners in future won't try to hold onto actors as much now as there can be a staggering 24 doctors in the show. I can't imagine announcements for the 24th Doctor or so, but that's probably what people would have said about 11 doctors in the 70s and 80s. I think Doctor Who in some form or other will survive, but will it e rebooted so continuity wise, we won't ever see the 24th doctor? I hope not.

 

[diankra]

doubt that the thought that they were moving one closer to the regen limit ever had much influence on whether a Doctor stayed or left in the past; far more important would be that on the one hand, if you've got a successful, popular Doctor, then why take the risk of a change; on the other, if the actor wants to move on, then using some contractual obligation to persuade him to stay will just result in an unhappy actor whose discomfort might show onscreen, while bribing him to stay (as Pertwee hoped they would!) would break the show's budget. So it's simple, really: if they're working, keep them, if they're ready to go, then let them and keep your fingers crossed that the casting miracle will work once again.

 

[Captain Kathryn]

So we have had 12 Doctors (including Hurt's War Doctor). Then the Time Lords gave the Doctor an new 13 regeneration cycle. He used one of the 13 to regenerate to Capaldi's Doctor. So now the Doctor can have 12 more bodies after Capaldi so that gives us 24 Doctors in total.

How many Doctors do you think we will see before the show finally ends? Will the Doctor be more daring knowing he has lives to spare? How else do you think it will effect him?

Knowing it was a plot device designed to keep the series going I kind of find myself simply grateful that they found a way to do this in a believable and solid way.

Do I think he will be more daring? I'm not sure considering he is already pretty darn daring.

But honestly I think that the Doctor tends to treat each regeneration sort of as their own unique individual (in a way)...so in that respect I do not think he will be careless just because he knows he has lives to spare. He still usually wishes to preserve whatever body he is currently in.

 

[MacLeod]

So we have had 12 Doctors (including Hurt's War Doctor). Then the Time Lords gave the Doctor an new 13 regeneration cycle. He used one of the 13 to regenerate to Capaldi's Doctor. So now the Doctor can have 12 more bodies after Capaldi so that gives us 24 Doctors in total.

How many Doctors do you think we will see before the show finally ends? Will the Doctor be more daring knowing he has lives to spare? How else do you think it will effect him?

Nitpick it's isn't it 12 regenerations to a cycle.

But aside from that you are right, it would be 24 Doctor's but only beacuse the Doctor used up one of his regenerations without changing his appereance. As DT was the 11th and 12th incarantion.

 

[Christopher]

I think now show runners in future won't try to hold onto actors as much now as there can be a staggering 24 doctors in the show.

Given that very few Doctors have lasted more than three consecutive years, I wouldn't say they've ever held on all that tightly. Only Pertwee and Tom Baker have played the role for more than four years in a row.

And of course it's a given that once the 24th Doctor leaves the show, they'll find a way to give him another new cycle. The regeneration limit has never been an actual, real-world limit on how long the show could last. I's just something they made up to serve the story, and they can effortlessly handwave it away to keep the series going, as we saw on Christmas evening. We didn't even get an explanation for how the Time Lords gave him a new cycle; he just inhaled some pixie dust and that was it. So there can be as many Doctors as the show needs there to be.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I think now show runners in future won't try to hold onto actors as much now as there can be a staggering 24 doctors in the show.

Given that very few Doctors have lasted more than three consecutive years, I wouldn't say they've ever held on all that tightly. Only Pertwee and Tom Baker have played the role for more than four years in a row.

And David Tennant. 3 series and a year of specials.

Edited to add: Ah, well. To nit my own nit. He appeared in 2005 in the Christmas Special, and then on Jan 1, 2010... so... 4 to 5 years... depending on how you want to count.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I always count the "year of specials" as his fourth year. In the end, it really is.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

So we have had 12 Doctors (including Hurt's War Doctor). Then the Time Lords gave the Doctor an new 13 regeneration cycle. He used one of the 13 to regenerate to Capaldi's Doctor. So now the Doctor can have 12 more bodies after Capaldi so that gives us 24 Doctors in total.

How many Doctors do you think we will see before the show finally ends? Will the Doctor be more daring knowing he has lives to spare? How else do you think it will effect him?

Nitpick it's isn't it 12 regenerations to a cycle.

But aside from that you are right, it would be 24 Doctor's but only because the Doctor used up one of his regenerations without changing his appearance. As DT was the 11th and 12th incarnation.

So...25 Doctors then, including at least two Tom Bakers

 

[Alidar Jarok]

He used one of the 13 to regenerate to Capaldi's Doctor. So now the Doctor can have 12 more bodies after Capaldi so that gives us 24 Doctors in total.

Shouldn't it be 25? Capaldi is number 13, so 12 more after that makes 25.

Will the Doctor be more daring knowing he has lives to spare? How else do you think it will effect him?

I've never known the Doctor to be timid out of fear of death, so, no, I think he'll be basically the same.

I think now show runners in future won't try to hold onto actors as much now as there can be a staggering 24 doctors in the show.

I'm sure earlier producers thought 12 was a staggering number of Doctors.

In the end, it isn't really the producers that decide how many Doctors there will be since most actors playing the Doctor choose themselves when to end their run.

 

[Christopher]

Shouldn't it be 25? Capaldi is number 13, so 12 more after that makes 25.

I think the assumption is that the first of those 12 was expended regenerating Smith into Capaldi. He's not starting from birth as on his first cycle, so the new cycle is one life shorter.

Unless the new cycle begins with a "reset" and has 12 more lives after it. That hasn't been made clear yet.

I think now show runners in future won't try to hold onto actors as much now as there can be a staggering 24 doctors in the show.

I'm sure earlier producers thought 12 was a staggering number of Doctors.

And of course the reason regeneration exists at all is because it gave the producers a way to stop holding on to their star, William Hartnell.

In the end, it isn't really the producers that decide how many Doctors there will be since most actors playing the Doctor choose themselves when to end their run.

And of course it's the audience as well -- as long as the show stays popular, there will be no limit to the number of Doctors.

That said, it would be nice if we had someone stick around as the Doctor for 5-7 years again.

 

[DWF]

I'd just as soon not count the Doctors or his regenerations and just try to enjoy things as they are. Counting Doctors and regenerations just isn't alot of fun at least to me.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Especially since the limit can, apparently, be bypassed so easily. Given this, I'm surprised they haven't simply eliminated it altogether. A well placed line of dialogue can eliminate ANY limit on storytelling, so why not this?

And while we're on the subject:

Spoiler: past

whatever happened to the Valeyard? If I interpret this chronology-of-Doctors correctly, isn't one of the pre-Capaldi Doctors destined to become the Valeyard? Have they forgotten about that?

 

[Rincewiend]

^ Especially since the limit can, apparently, be bypassed so easily. Given this, I'm surprised they haven't simply eliminated it altogether. A well placed line of dialogue can eliminate ANY limit on storytelling, so why not this?

And while we're on the subject:

Spoiler: past

whatever happened to the Valeyard? If I interpret this chronology-of-Doctors correctly, isn't one of the pre-Capaldi Doctors destined to become the Valeyard? Have they forgotten about that?

He was a possibility, not set in stone IIRC

 

[Christopher]

The Master said "The Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation." Since he was between incarnations, not part of an incarnation, that suggests he somehow split off from the Doctor or was formed out of his darker side. The Valeyard himself said he was "constrained" by the Doctor's existence, seeking to destroy the good in the Doctor so he would be free. As if he were more a projection of some kind than a full-fledged person.

Given what we now know, his twelfth incarnation would've been Tennant from "Journey's End" through "The End of Time." So the Valeyard would have to have split off sometime during the Tenth Doctor's "farewell tour" montage. We know the Tenth Doctor really, really didn't want to go -- so much that he actually managed to regenerate without changing form and personality on one occasion. Maybe that selfish fear and bitterness about having to "die" crystallized within him. Maybe he tried an experiment of some kind, between scenes in the montage, and it went wrong and created the Valeyard. Or maybe all that dark emotion spontaneously erupted from him during that cataclysmic regeneration and coalesced into an alternate self.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Yes, I've heard about this duplicate of the 10th Doctor. I suppose he could become the Valeyard. Seems most likely, anyway. (What actually ended up happening to that duplicate, BTW?) I'm wondering if TPTB really ever actually plan on following up on it, or if they treat the Valeyard's entire existence as simply a one-off plot point that can be ignored.

Then again, IIRC the only word we have as to the Valeyard's nature is from the Master, and of course there's no real reason to believe anything the Master ever says, is there? Assuming the Master always lies - or always can lie, anyway - then I suppose the Valeyard doesn't really have to be the Doctor or a duplicate of same. Is there any actual, verifiable, non-Master proof that he was?

 

[Christopher]

No, I'm not talking about the Metacrisis duplicate. He's not one of the Doctor's lives, he's a half-human clone. The point is, in "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End," the Doctor was shot by a Dalek, began to regenerate, healed himself, but somehow controlled the process enough to prevent his body and personality from changing, and dumped the residual energy into his duplicate hand, which later grew into the Metacrisis Doctor when touched by Donna. But the Doctor himself was now on a new incarnation. Basically he had two consecutive lives with the same appearance and personality, and that's aside from his half-human double. That's why the Eleventh Doctor needed a new cycle of lives in order to regenerate -- because he was actually on his thirteenth life. But the John Hurt incarnation didn't consider himself the Doctor, and the David Tennant incarnation actually spanned two consecutive lives.

The Metacrisis Doctor can't become the Valeyard, because he's one life too early. He was created between the Doctor's eleventh and twelfth lives, not his twelfth and thirteenth. He's also half-human, which means he'll grow old and die like a human rather than regenerating; thus he couldn't change form into the Valeyard.

 

[P0sitr0nic]

Yes, I've heard about this duplicate of the 10th Doctor. I suppose he could become the Valeyard. Seems most likely, anyway. (What actually ended up happening to that duplicate, BTW?) I'm wondering if TPTB really ever actually plan on following up on it, or if they treat the Valeyard's entire existence as simply a one-off plot point that can be ignored.

Then again, IIRC the only word we have as to the Valeyard's nature is from the Master, and of course there's no real reason to believe anything the Master ever says, is there? Assuming the Master always lies - or always can lie, anyway - then I suppose the Valeyard doesn't really have to be the Doctor or a duplicate of same. Is there any actual, verifiable, non-Master proof that he was?

Stuck in Pete's world with Rose. And he has one heart. Fully human.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Metacrisis Doctor can't become the Valeyard, because he's one life too early. He was created between the Doctor's eleventh and twelfth lives, not his twelfth and thirteenth.

Remember what I just said about a creatively written line of dialogue. I'm sure they could write around that. Assuming - as I just suggested - that the Master was even telling the truth in the first place, which I do find unlikely on its face...

He's also half-human, which means he'll grow old and die like a human rather than regenerating; thus he couldn't change form into the Valeyard.

But isn't the "real" Doctor also supposed to be half-human (as per the TV-Movie)?